The Ineos Insight tanker carrying ethane – a feedstock for chemical production –docked at Grangemouth, Scotland on September 27th, 2016. The tanker, carrying 27,500 cubic meters (970,000 cubic feet) of ethane, is the first shipment of gas produced from US shale fields to arrive in Britain, and is part of Ineos’s investment to create a virtual pipeline across the Atlantic.
Increased production of ethane, which is extracted from unprocessed natural gas along with other liquids, has boosted exports from the US, first by pipeline to Canada and then by tanker to overseas destinations. Ethane is used as a key feedstock for plastics production and other industrial uses, according to the US Energy Information Administration. US exports of LNG started in February from Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. Most cargoes went to Latin America, the Middle East and India.